The Bride's Baby (Harlequin Romance)

196 Pages·2008·1.83 MB·English

by  Liz Fielding

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Sylvie turned to find her way
blocked by six and a half feet
of broad-shouldered male and
experienced a bewildering sense
of ddééjjàà vvuu..
A feeling that this had happened before.
And then she looked up and realized that it was not
an illusion.This had happened before—except on
that occasion the male concerned had been wearing
navy pinstripe instead of gray cashmere.
“Some billionaire...” her friend had said, but hadn’t
mentioned a name. And she hadn’t bothered to ask,
pretending she didn’t care.
She cared now, because it wasn’t just “some”
billionaire who’d bought her family home and was
planning to turn it into a conference center.
It was Tom McFarlane, the man with whom—just
for a few moments—she’d totally lost it.
The man whose baby she was carrying.
Dear Reader,
In 2009 Harlequin will celebrate sixty years of
providing women with pure reading pleasure. To mark
this special anniversary, we are pleased to offer you
this book written by popular Romance author Liz
Fielding.
Each month the Harlequin Romance series brings you
six feel-good stories—with a variety of gorgeous
international settings—that are written from the heart
for the heart. Each book captures the feeling of falling
in love again and again. You might laugh or you might
cry, but a happy ending is guaranteed!
We hope you enjoy The Bride’s Baby, and that you’ll
treat yourself to some more romantic reads with
Harlequin Romance in the future.
Happy anniversary,
The Harlequin Romance Editors
Liz Fielding

The Bride’s Baby
TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON
AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG
STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID
PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND
Liz Fielding was born to travel. She made it
to Zambia before her twenty-first birthday and,
gathering her own special hero and a couple of
children on the way, lived in Botswana, Kenya and
Bahrain—with pauses for sightseeing pretty much
everywhere in between. She finally came to a full
stop in a tiny Welsh village cradled by misty hills,
and these days allows her imagination to do most of
the traveling.When she’s not sorting out the lives
and loves of her characters, she works in the garden,
reads her favorite authors and spends a lot of time
wondering What if...? For news of upcoming books
and more, visit Liz’s Web site at www.lizfielding.com.
CHAPTER ONE
SYLVIE SMITH checked the time. Her appointment had been for
two o’clock. The time on her laptop now read two forty-five—
because she hadn’t just sat there in the luxurious reception of
Tom McFarlane’s penthouse office suite twiddling her thumbs
and drinking coffee.
Chance would have been a fine thing.
The message couldn’t have been plainer.
Shewastheenemyandsoshe’dbeenlefttotwiddleherthumbs
without the courtesy of a cup of coffee to help fill the time.
Not a problem. Her nerves were already in shreds without
adding a surfeit of caffeine to the mix. And she hadn’t twiddled
her thumbs either. She didn’t have time to waste thumb-twid­
dling. Didn’t have time to waste, full stop.
Instead she’d occupied herself finalising the details of an
Indian-style wedding she was coordinating for a supermodel.
She’d even managed to track down an elephant that was for hire
by the day.
She’d also soothed the nerves of a fading pop diva who was
hoping to revive her career with a spectacular launch party for
her new CD.
All of which had helped to keep her from dwelling upon the
approaching meeting. When—if—it ever happened.
8 THE BRIDE’S BABY
She knew she was the last person in the world Tom McFarlane
wanted to see. Understood why he’d want to put off the moment
for as long as was humanly possible. The feeling was mutual.
The only thing she didn’t understand was why, when he’d
been so obviously avoiding her for the last six months, he was
putting them both through this now.
She checked the time again. Ten to three. Enough was enough.
Her patience might be limitless—it was that, and her attention
to detail, that made her one of the most sought-after event
planners in London—but her time was not.
This meeting had been Tom McFarlane’s idea. The very last
thing she’d wanted was a meeting with a man she hadn’t been
able to get out of her mind since she’d first set eyes on him. A
man who had been about to marry her old school friend, and
darling of the gossip mags, Candida Harcourt.
All she wanted was his cheque so that she could settle out­
standing bills and put the whole sorry nightmare behind her.
She closed down her laptop, packed it away, then crossed to
the desk and the receptionist who had been studiously ignoring
her ever since she’d arrived.
‘I can’t wait any longer,’ she said. ‘Please tell Mr McFarlane
that I’ll be in my office after ten o’clock tomorrow if he has any
queries on the account.’
‘Oh, but—’
‘I should already be somewhere else,’ she said, cutting short
the woman’s protest. Not strictly true—her staff were more than
capable of dealing with any crisis involving the CD launch party,
but sometimes you had to make the point that your time—if not
quite as valuable as that of a billionaire—was still a limited com­
modity. And maybe, on reflection, he’d be as glad as she was to
avoid this confrontation and just put a cheque in the post. ‘If I
don’t leave now—’
LIZ FIELDING 9
The receptionist didn’t answer but a prickle of awareness as
the woman’s gaze shifted to somewhere over her right shoulder
warned her that they were no longer alone.
Turning, she found her view blocked by a broad chest, wide
shoulders encased in a white linen shirt. It was open at the neck
and the sleeves had been rolled back to the elbow to reveal
brawny forearms, strong wrists.
A silk tie had been pulled loose as if its owner had been wres­
tling with some intractable problem. She didn’t doubt that,
whatever it was, he’d won.
Despite the fact that she’d spent the last six months planning
Tom McFarlane’s wedding, this was only the second time she’d
actually seen him face to face.
Make that forehead to chin, she thought, forced, despite her
highest heels, to look up. She’d known this was going to be a dif­
ficult afternoon and had felt the need to armour herself with
serious clothes.
The chin was deeply cleft.
She already knew that. She’d seen photographs long before
she’d met the man. Tom McFarlane wasn’t much of a socialite,
but no billionaire bachelor could entirely escape the attention of
the gossip magazines, especially once his marriage to the daugh­
ter of a minor aristocrat—one who’d made a career out of ap­
pearing in the glossies—had been announced.
The cleft did nothing to undermine its force; on the contrary,
it emphasised it and, for the second time, her only thought was,
What on earth was Candy thinking?
Stupid question.
From the moment she’d bounced into her office demanding
that SDS Events organise her wedding to billionaire business­
man Tom McFarlane, Sylvie had known exactly what Candy
had been thinking.
10 THE BRIDE’S BABY
This was the fulfilment of her ‘life plan’. The one with which,
years ago, she’d enlivened a school careers seminar by announc­
ing that her ‘career plan’ was to marry a millionaire. One with a
house in Belgravia, a country estate and a title. The title was
negotiable; one should apparently be flexible—the size of the
bank account was not.
Why waste her time sweating over exams when she had no in­
tentionofgoingtouniversity?Studentssaddledwithoverdraftsand
loansheldnointerestforher.Allhereffortwasgoingtobeputinto
perfecting her natural assets—at which point she’d performed a
pouty, cheesecake pose—and making the perfect marriage.
Everyone had laughed—that was the thing about Candy, she
always made you laugh—but no one had actually doubted that
she meant it, or that she was capable of achieving her goal.
She’d already looked like coming close a couple of times.
Maybe, rising thirty, she’d realised that time was running out and
she’d jettisoned everything but the core plan although, inflation
being what it was, she’d upgraded her ambition to billionaire.
A better question might have been, What on earth had Tom
McFarlane been thinking?
An even dumber question.
It was a truth universally acknowledged that a smile from
Candy Harcourt’s sexy mouth was enough to short-circuit the
brain of any man who could muster more than one red blood cell.
She might have bypassed her exams but she hadn’t stinted on the
midnight oil when it came to enhancing her career assets which
were, it had to be admitted, considerable.
Gorgeous, funny—who could possibly resist her? Why would
any man try?
And while Tom McFarlane might give the impression that
he’d been rough-hewn from rock—and eyes that were, at that
moment, glittering like granite certainly added to the impression